“I’m inclined to believe, Deane, that it has everything to do with it.”
“That is ridiculous,” she answered, flushing. “It isn’t nice.”
Martin looked at her closely. Deane’s eyes were implacable. Cold, glassed-in, the poisonous shell moved around her. He could not reach her. He thought quickly, fantastically, in his unhappiness. The period. The time of the moon. The time eggs swell and burst into a live stream. In his vision he watched a flood of red, elliptical objects swing in a gigantic arch from heaven to earth. Rolling and whispering through the dark air, they poured in a fast tide past his aching eyes. Redolent of life, acrid with blood, they cried from the great sky-womb into the whirling land. Symbolic of woman’s supremacy, the scarlet bank lightened, faded and died, that it might live again.
“Deane!” cried Martin. “I have seen the secret.”
“What secret, Martin?”
“The secret that you have a secret. That you have a secret that I will never know. That no man will ever know. It is your earth-quality, your heritage as a woman. A glory and a pride, and I have confused it.”
Deane turned her dark, lovely eyes toward him.
“What do you mean?” she asked, and a tiny nerve close to her mouth quivered.
Martin laughed. He had the key. He had turned the key and the glass had broken. Gone was the poisonous mist and doubt from Deane’s eyes.